Witches around the world are casting a spell on Donald Trump at midnight tonight

It makes sense that witches don’t much like Donald Trump. Witches, after all, know what it’s like to be an oppressed minority, and the new US president shares at least two of the values that saw so many women hanged, drowned, and burned at the stake up until the 19th century: namely, a desire to control female bodies, and a general distaste for difference.

But now, finally, the magical community is fighting back. Exorcists, occultists and witches around the world are taking part in a ritual designed to “bind Donald Trump and all who abet him” on Friday night – and they intend to keep performing the spell until the US president is driven out of office.

The ritual is to be performed at midnight on Friday 24 February, and will be repeated at 12am “on every waning crescent moon” until Trump is no longer president.

Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon and Cher in The Witches of Eastwick. Given that both Cher and Sarandon are outspoken Trump critics, it seems likely that these witches would be game for a spell.

A Facebook event for the spell-casting calls on witches to “join the largest mass binding spell in history as participants around the world, individually and in groups, focus their consciousness to prevent Donald Trump from doing harm”.

Witches taking part in the mass ritual will ask spirits of water, earth, fire and air (as well as “heavenly hosts”, “demons of the infernal realms” and “spirits of the ancestors”) to protect humanity and the environment from Trump’s policies.

The spell, which has apparently been shared widely in various secret magical online communities, calls on occult forces to “bind Donald J. Trump so that he may fail utterly, that he may do no harm to any human soul, nor any tree, animal, rock, stream or sea”.

The witches’ invocation also includes a request to “bind” Trump’s supporters, “who enable his wickedness, and those whose mouths speak his poisonous lies”.

An orange candle is one of the crucial ingredients for the spell to get Trump out of office.

Various physical ‘components’ are required to do the spell properly. These include a feather, bowls of water and salt, and the “tiny stub of an orange candle”, which will be used to burn “an unflattering picture of Trump”. (Suggestions that the candle is intended to represent Trump’s tiny, stubby hands and waxy orange complexion are, as yet, unverified.)

Once the spell is complete, it is suggested that witches say “You’re fired!” instead of the more traditional magical conclusion of “So mote it be”.

“This should be particularly beautiful as the flames consume his image,” the spell reads.

Importantly, witches won’t get hit with any bad karma or “potential negative blowback” for taking part in the mass ritual. The notes attached to the spell explain that “this is not the equivalent of magically punching a Nazi”.

“Rather, it is ripping the bullhorn from his hands, smashing his phone so he can’t tweet, tying him up and throwing him in a dark basement where he can’t hurt anyone.”

Protestors, disgruntled Democrats, and now the combined force of the world’s witches? Looks like Trump’s got his work cut out…